No Modi Wave

Disclaimer:
All the opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of Dr. Seshadri
Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean the opinions of any other
person or organization, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the article.

*********************************

This
article belongs to the emerging science of political meteorology – about
people-driven waves and tsunamis, winds of change, changing political currents,
shifting social tectonics, and other phenomena in the political weather of a
nation.

In
particular, political meteorologists seem to be deeply divided on a recent
phenomenon, the “Modi wave.” Eminent political meteorologists belonging to all
Indian political parties other than the BJP and its allies deny the existence
of this phenomenon.

This
article tries to examine the statements of prominent political meteorologists
and definitively establish whether the Modi wave is a fact or an error of
terminology.

Examination of The Various Claims

Below
I reproduce statements from news reports in the months leading to the election
by prominent political meteorologists.
The statements are verbatim quotes from news reports, and the actual
articles are provided as embedded links.

Claiming
that Congress would win more seats in UP as compared to 2009 parliamentary
polls, Joshi said there was no Modi
wave in the country. She also predicted the party's win in both Allahabad city
and Phulpur parliamentary constituencies and said the party candidates- Nand
Gopal Gupta 'Nandi' and Mohd Kaif are young and popular among masses.

Result: The BJP and its
pre-poll allies Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas Paswan) and Rashtriya Lok Samta
Party won 31 out of 40 seats in Bihar. The RJD of Lalu Prasad Yadav could only
win 4 seats. Additionally, Raghuvansh
Prasad Singh lost his seat of Vaishali to Rama Kishore Singh of the BJP by a
margin of 99,267 votes.

Result: The
BJP-Shivsena-Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana alliance swept Maharashtra, winning
42 out of 48 seats. The Congress Party won only 2 seats in the state, and its
alliance partner, the Nationalist Congress Party, won only 4 seats. Sushil Shinde himself lost in his bastion of
Solapur to Sharad Bansode of the BJP by 1,49,674 votes.

Result: The BJP, in
spite of all the problems that caused the disintegration of their state
government after the corruption allegations against BS Yeddyurappa and his
subsequent resignation, and their subsequent loss in the state elections,
managed to come back in Karnataka, winning 17 of 28 seats. The Congress only managed to win 9 seats.

Result:
All 7 seats in Delhi were won by the BJP. Ajay Maken himself lost his seat in New Delhi,
finishing 3rd, by polling 2,70,457 votes fewer than the winner,
Meenakshi Lekhi of the BJP, and 1,07,749 votes fewer than Ashish Khetan of the
AAP, who finished 2nd.

“There is no wave; it is a
euphemism that has caught the media's fascination. The real issue is different:
Thanks to telecommunication and free flow of information, the voter today is
informed.”

“Aspirations in the UP
heartland are rising but the opportunities have dried up. This has led to
frustration, and also anger against the incumbent powers. The SP government in
Uttar Pradesh and the UPA at the Centre face this sentiment.”

“The hype that Modi has
created is merely a manifestation of this antiestablishment frustration. But he
must realise that rallies are only a part of electoral fights and do not always
reflect the final results. Your grassroots workers, your ideology and
coalitions matter.”

Result:
The BJP won 71 seats in Uttar Pradesh; along with its ally, the Apna Dal, their
alliance won 73 out of 80 seats. Ajit Singh’s RLD did not win ANY seats in the
Lok Sabha. Ajit Singh himself lost in Baghpat by placing 3rd, behind
Dr. Satyapal Singh of the BJP and Ghulam Mohammed of the Samajwadi Party, by
polling 2,23,959 votes fewer than Dr. Satyapal Singh and 14,093 votes fewer
than Ghulam Mohammed.

"Some
people are saying that there is Modi wave in the country. I travelled to many
parts of the country and went to many states, but could not see any such wave.
If there is any public wave in the country, it's not for Modi. It's the wave of
anger against the administration," Kejriwal told media here.

Result: BJP wins 282
seats and an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha, and 336 seats with its allies
in the NDA. AAP wins 4 seats total, all
of them in Punjab, and none in Delhi, where they had won 28 seats in the state
elections and held the reins of government.

Jaiswal told ET in an
interview
that the Modi wave is nothing more than "artificially-created
hype". He attributed the phenomenon
to advertising campaigns paid for by top industrialists supporting the BJP PM
bid.

Result: Jaiswal fell
along with most of his colleagues in the great UP massacre, losing to the BJP
veteran Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi in Kanpur by 2,22,946 votes.

Result: In Karnataka,
the BJP won 17 of 28 seats against all expectations; in Himachal Pradesh, the
BJP swept all 4 seats; and in Uttarakhand, the BJP again swept, winning all 5
seats. As for Pilot, he lost in Ajmer to
Sanwar Lal Jat by 1,71,983 votes.

*********

Conclusions

Looking
at all these claims and results, we come to one conclusion. The eminent
political meteorologists were all right.
This was not a Modi wave, but not in the way they meant
it.

A
simple wave could not explain what has happened in this election:

1.The BJP won 282 seats, more than it ever has won before.

2.It was the first single-party majority election result since
1984.

3.The BJP completely wiped out other parties in several states
– Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Goa, and Delhi; and this
is not counting states with single seats like Chandigarh or Diu and Daman.

4.In many states that the NDA did not totally sweep, it often
dominated completely – as in the case of Maharashtra (42/48), Chhatisgarh
(10/11), Haryana (7/10), Jharkhand (12/14), and Madhya Pradesh (27/29).

5.The only major states where the NDA did not have an impact
were Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, and Odisha.

6.Because of the strong performance of the NDA, many important
parties were left with no seats in the Lok Sabha. Prominent among these are the Bahujan Samaj
Party, the National Conference, the DMK, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, MNS, and Asom
Gana Parishad.

7.The difference in vote share between the BJP and its closest
competitor, the Congress Party, was a whopping 12%.

8.The Congress party dropped to its lowest-ever total of 44
seats.

Given
all this, what happened was not a Modi wave. It was a Modi tsunami, which
destroyed all opposing parties in its wake.

People were fed up with the scams in large numbers in the congress regime and bringing in the scamsters into the party and give plum posts. Manmohan Singh was an utter failure as PM . He played into the hands of the dynasty members . AAP, though started with ideals, were a failure in not consolidating what they achieved in Delhi Elections. So, Modi had his ways clear. Let us hope that he will use this situation to bring up the country into an economic stability by his ability .

Thanks for your comment, Mama! Yes, we hope Modi will bring in much-needed change and a different kind of economics from the welfare economics of the Congress (and their first focus on welfare was themselves! :-)

Aaah. Found it late - but it was excellent compilation of people's comment on Modi wave. ....sorry the tsunami! I didn't have a tenacity for such compilation - but here is what I had put together from my understanding. Read: "The anatomy the of Modi wave" - https://dipanmehta.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/so-there-is-a-modi-wave-but-why/